Bell flowers and passion flowers

Katagami stencil depicting sprays of bell flowers and another, highly stylised, flower which could be passion flower or karahana (conventionalised flowers known as 'Chinese flowers'). This is one of around 400 Japanese 'katagami' stencils which are part of the Silver Studio Collection. The stencils were produced in Japan as a way of applying patterns to fabric, mainly kimonos. The katagami collected by the Silver Studio all date from the 1860s and 70s, and were used by the Studio's designers as reference material via which to produce their own Japanese-inspired patterns.